Burnley’s Race for Life will not run next year

Race for Life will not be returning to Burnley next year to help raise more money by reducing costs

805 women ran the popular Towneley Park event in June

Runners still wanting to take part can join in either Blackburn or Preston’s Race for Life events

Burnley’s popular Race for Life will not be run in the town next year.

Organisers of Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life announced they had made the “difficult decision” to reduce the number of smaller Race for Life events across the UK, which includes the event at Towneley Hall in Burnley.

805 women took part in this year's run

The changes are being made to help raise more money for vital research by reducing costs.

Annette Quarry, Cancer Research UK national event manager for the North West, said: “Race for Life raises money to fund life-saving research.

“So we owe it to our participants and supporters to ensure that we raise as much money as possible in the most cost-efficient way.

“Although 805 women took part at our event in Burnley in June, entries were lower than anticipated.

We want to express our heart-felt thanks to everyone who has taken part in Race for Life in Burnley.

Annette Quarry, Cancer Research UK national event manager for the North West

“Taking the costs of staging the event into consideration, we’ve taken the difficult decision not to run it again in 2016.

“We are very grateful to our participants, and their supporters, who took part in the event this year and in the past.

“The charity would like to thank Burnley Borough Council for its support.

“We want to express our heart-felt thanks to everyone who has taken part in Race for Life in Burnley. It may be possible for Race for Life to return to the town in future years but for now we hope our supporters will understand the reason for this difficult decision for 2016.”

Race for Life 5k events will be held at Preston and Blackburn in 2016.

A Race for Life 10k event and Pretty Muddy event will also be held at Preston.

More people are beating cancer than ever before. Survival rates have doubled over the last 40 years and Cancer Research UK’s work has been at the heart of that progress.

Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life, in partnership with Tesco, is an inspiring women-only series of 5k, 10k, Pretty Muddy and Marathon events which raise millions of pounds every year to fund life-saving research to help beat 200 types of cancer sooner.

For more information about alternative Cancer Research UK Race for Life events visitwww.raceforlife.org